Mr. President, Gobal Warming Is Not a Hoax
 
Every sentient adult in America should know that our planet is getting warmer. The truly well-informed understand that the warming is largely due to human activity and that, if this trend continues at the current rate, significant portions of the Earth's surface may become too hot and humid to sustain human life by the end of this century, if not before. It is well understood that this increase in global temperatures is very largely due to the burning of fossil fuels, which produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide. That is the most common of the greenhouse gases that are on the way to making the Earth uninhabitable. A much stronger such gas is methane, produced by farm animals, landfills, and natural gas. Also very powerful at trapping heat are the man-made fluorinated gases used in refrigerators, air conditioners, and some industrial processes.  
 
Together, these and other greenhouse gases act like a blanket around the Earth, warming us comfortably for a time, but growing so thick that the blanket will eventually suffocate us. Before we reach the point where human settlements are extinguished, life will become less bearable for us and other species pretty much across the globe. Climate change will give us extreme weather, growing health risks, food and water insecurity, economic loss, and the displacement of speceis along with the loss of biodiversity.
 
All this is becoming clearer to human beings around the world.
 
But we now live in a moment when the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet refuses to accept this as a blueprint of our present and future condition. For Donald Trump, the idea of climate change due to global warming amounts to a "hoax." As he put it in his hour-long speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month, climate change is "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world." He claimed, without evidence, that the scientific predictions about where global warming was taking us were wrong. He then falsely claimed that wind turbines are unreliable and clean energy in general "too expensive." (In fact, renewable sources accounted for the majority of global electricity growth in 2024, and wind and solar projects are now cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives.)
 
In the days following his harangue to a global audience, Trump said his administration would open 13 million acres of federal lands for coal mining and provide $625 million to recommission or modernize coal-fired power plants in the U.S. In the words of Trump's Interior Secretary, the new slogan to be added to the president's catch-phrase, "drill, baby, drill," was "mine, baby, mine." Days later, it was announced that the Department of Energy was cancelling hundreds of clean energy projects in states led by Democrats. That included cutting off funding totaling $8 billion for projects in 16 states. In the words of Russell Vought, Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget, "the Left's climate agenda is being canceled." So it is.
 
This denial of global warming and its consequences by the current occupant of the White House is a very literal example of Trump's more general effort to turn the nation back to what he imagined as America's finer age--perhaps its golden one, in his view. That was when what he describes as "beautiful" coal was king. Yet, energy experts are convinced that whatever the bump for coal under Trump, it should not long outlast his presidency. That's because natural gas is cheaper and the market for such renewable energy as comes with wind and solar power is on the rise across the land. That we should continue to mine, baby, mine looks increasingly anachronistic, not to say, contrary to our good health.
 
Let us hope that the essential characteristics of the energy industry themselves are such that its experts will be proved correct. It is more equivocal to predict that the various other ways in which this president is marauding thoughout this republic of ours will soon be reversed. That is because reversing Trump's actions across our political system requires agreement on the part of virtually all our citizens that such committed action is essential, and it is not yet clear to me, at least, that we Americans are on the verge of such unity. We must all come to recognize that the very life of our Constitution is what is at stake. Reversing global warming is just one very important piece in protecting our political system--and our way of life.
 
                                               (October 2025)
 
 
 
 
How Not To Honor American History
 
Donald Trump had scarcely moved into the White House for the second time before he began to take a wrecking hammer to policies that he disagreed with. Those captured in the phrase "diversity, equity, and inclusion" were at the top of his list. That was shorthand for the effort to make up for our centuries-long tendency to exclude certain minorities from full participation in, especially, the nation's intellectual and political life. No, for Trump, d.e.i. had been invented by "woke" leftists, who fabricated the phrase to justify their own effort to shut out the male-dominated white establishment that until comparatively recently pretty much ruled the roost. He challenged the nation's colleges and universities to abandon such aims, then made it plain in another executive order that the same should apply to any exhibits in museums and cultural institutions that received support from the federal government.  
 
That directly threatened the exhibits that define much of the history on display in Independence National Historical Park, which is in my own backyard. Trump demanded that such displays should not "inappropriately disparage" Americans past or living. That immediately called into question the many displays that included references to our history of supporting slavery in much of the nation. Very soon, a grassroots effort arose to preserve the more than dozen exhibits naming or depicting slavery in and around Independence Park. Since 2010 at the President's House site north of Independence Hall, a display has focused on the nine people enslaved by George Washington who lived there with him when he served as the nation's first president. The city's main tourism agency, Visit Philly, soon announced that, if the administration did remove these and other exhibits about slavery in our nation's history, it would step in to find another location outside the National Park, but hopefully within the historic district, where these displays could be kept alive. 
 
Other exhibits in our neighborhood that were flagged for review, thanks to Trump, for also having potentially "inappropriate" content are at the Benjamin Franklin Museum, the Second Bank of the United States, Independence Hall, and on an outdoor exhibit panel on Independence Mall. I write before we know whether the Trumpists or those led by Visit Philly have won this battle. The feds have made it clear that they intend to prevail before the end of the current month (September). Nonetheless, those civic groups opposed to that outcome show no signs of backing down and continue to catalyze public opposition to the Trump effort to change our history. Some of them have worked to archive the sites in Independence Park in anticipation of the removal of some exhibits. So, I remain hopeful that the effort to tell the truth in and around these historic sites will prevail.
 
Next year is of course the Semiquincentennial--the 250th anniversary--of the signing of the Declaraton of Independence. That is sure to bring an upsurge of visitors to this city where that founding document was written and signed. It wold be a sad anomaly if the "official" celebrations here were to provide no more than bland and insipid displays of the presumed causes of our Revolution and the challenges in achieving our independence. Good historical studies are so not because they whitewash the events they showcase but because they truthfully reveal the negative as well as the positive strands in the historical fabic. Nor is it a stretch to argue that first-class higher education attends to the dark as well as the bright aspects of our intellectual heritage, always with a view toward learning from both. Let us demand that, starting here at home, we shall always aspire to tell the whole truth about our history.
 
Yes, there's much more in the Trump playbook than I've considered here to arouse our concern: rounding up and deporting thousands of undocumented immigrants, imposing unprecedented tariffs on myriad countries, having the National Guard take over Washigton, D.C., and other cities. But the things I've just touhced on are sure to disrupt the peace not only here in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, but across the nation. If we let that happen, we'll have moved our democratic republic several steps farther down the road to its demise. 
 
     (September 2025)
 
 
 
 
Will We Save Our Republic?
 
The United States has arrived at a moment when its days as a constitutional republic may be doomed. Some six months into his second presidency, Donald Trump, the nation's current chief executive, is largely unrestrained in his bent to rule unfettered by the checks and balances that form the bedrock of the Constitution. His "advisors" are the compliant yes-men-and-women he chose for their subservience to him. On the few occasions where the public has been allowed to see anything close to a disagreement with the boss on their part, the issue has quickly been waved away so that compliance reigns supreme. Nor is acquiescence in place of vigorous discussion to help the president make informed policy confined to the Executive banch. Almost without exception, the current crop of Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives meekly follow his lead in virtually all that he does.
 
And much of what Trump has done in these few months back in the White House is cause for alarm. He has made it clear repeatedly that, as far as he is concerned, all talk of humanity's responsibility for global warming is a hoax, one prompted by Democrats. He directed the Environmental Protection Agency to stop enforcing federal rules intended to make our air safer to breathe and our water safer to drink. Both the EPA and the Department of Education are now run by Trumpites who seem to have been given those jobs so that they could dismantle the agencies they were named to run. This president has also cut health insurance for some 17 million Americans, ending Medicaid assistance to millions of our poorest citizens. He has fired thousands of federal workers in many agencies, and pushed for funding cuts that have led to a dramatic decrease in federal grants for research on such topics as infectious disease, cancer, and environmental health.
 
Early in August, the president announced a cut of $1.1 billion in federal assistance to public news media. For many decades, those dollars made it possible for small towns as well as cities across the nation to maintain non-biased radio and television coverage of the news. That has never been a more sacred mission than it is now that we live in an age when social media, with all the distortions and biases they give rise to, have become the bread and butter of millions of Americans.
 
Then there are Trump's tariffs. As of this writing, many are in flux. But it is clear nonetheless, thanks to Donald Trump, that our effective tariff rate across the board is about to be the highest since the Great Depression and its infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs. In the near century since then, freer--if not completely free--trade has been the world-wide norm. Because tariffs are a tax on the consumer, we now face the prospect of ramped-up inflation or a decline in the consumer goods most Americans will be able to afford. 
 
Resistance is growing in the electorate, but whether it will be substantial enough to stop this president's persistent trek toward unchecked authoritarian rule is very much an open question. Clearly, substantial losses for Trump's party at next year's mid-term elections could turn the tide. But how much closer to the brink--if we will not already have fallen over it by then--will America be fifteen months from today? The time is now for persistent acts of resistance, which could appear in myriad forms. For a little essay that resonates with my thoughts here, though her goal is not identical to mine, see what Alexandria Ocasio Cortez just had to say: www.speak@ocasiocortez.com.
 
                                                        (August 2025)
 
 
 
 
"Leader" of the "Free World"
 
It is now 76 years since the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The aim of NATO's 12 original members was to oppose any further expansion of the Soviet Union by pledging in its Charter's Article V that an attack by the Kremlin on any of them should be regarded as an attack upon all. Crucially, that meant committing the U.S., as by far the strongest alliance member, to protect and defend all other members from Soviet aggression.
 
With the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO's work was evidently done. Or not. Its members soon agreed that they should extend their nuclear umbrella to the east to consolidate democratic gains then underway in the former Soviet bloc. In the years since, 14 states that had been Soviet satellites joined NATO, which today totals 33 members. Article V was invoked for the first and only time following the 9/11 attack by the Afghanistan-based terrorist group, al-Qaeda, on New York City and the Pentagon. When the U.S. then launched a war in Afghanistan, 130,000 troops from a total of 50 countries--including both NATO and other partners--joined the battle. 
 
Until Donald Trump returned to the White House this past January, the United States could generally be expected to lead the way in marshalling the support of allies when trouble at the international level demanded a response from the West. But in February, President Trump, along with Vice-President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, launched a series of verbal attacks on our European alllies, chiding them for not contributing sufficiently to their common defense. He then humiliated Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky during their meeting in the Oval Office by suggesting that Kiev should willingly concede territory to the Russian aggressors to end the war that began with the Russians' unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This from the same Donald Trump who had campaigned on the pledge to end that war on his first day back in office.
 
With the arrival of this year's spring, Israel's attempt to subdue Hamas was bringing death to thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. Then, on June 13, Israel attacked Iran, allegedly because of a report that the Iranian regime had "accelerated significantly" its effort to build a nuclear weapon. Days later, it being apparent that Iran was seriously weakened, Trump ordered stealth bombers to fly into Iran and drop massive bombs on three nuclear facilities. Whether or not those sites were "obliterated," as Trump claimed, the bombers were undetected by Iranian forces. Days later, Iran agreed to a cease-fire with Israel, one brokered by the U.S. NATO was nowhere to be seen.
 
In America, the Trump attack on Iran received some 70% approval by Republicans, but only 5% from Democrats. Meanwhile, Trump's overall approval ratings generally fell among voters from across the political spectrum as the nation watched to see his enormous tax-and-spend bill struggle to gain approval in the Senate. Once it was nearly ready for a vote at the end of June, Elon Musk, who had been Trump's chief lieutenant for ending Federal programs and firing workers, no doubt shocked his former associates when he labeled that bill "utterly insane and destructive."
 
At this moment, for the first time since NATO was created in 1949, it is an open question as to what nation or nations can be called the leader of the free world, (never mind that the latter term has gone decidedly out of fashion since the demise of the Soviet Union). To be sure, the United States remains the wealthiest and (after India and China) third-most populous nation-state on the planet. It is also clear that as long as Mr. Trump remains in the White House, America will behave on the global stage not as the world's policeman but as one player's only semi-accountable vigilante enforcer. Yet, if our Constitution holds--and, yes, there are serious concerns that it might not--his term in office will end in three-and-a-half years. A best-case scenario has him failing sufficiently to meet the needs of America's and the world's citizens that his successor will work diligently to reinvigorate the Enlightenment principles upon which the nation was founded, and to support the rule of law in the world. I needn't spell out the worst-case scenario.
 
I am firmly of the view that we are perfectly capable of saving ourselves, and to do so by laying the groundwork for improving our society. Not to do so is to lay a curse on all those who come after us. Let us try to leave them with a better world instead.
 
                                       (July 2025)
 
 
 
 
Trump, Not Global Warming, Is the Hoax
 
Donald Trump has only been back in the White House four-plus months. But that has given him more than enough time to reverse decades of progress in the effort to protect our environment and save our planet from death through global warming. The United States--the worTld's largest economy--is now rolling back emissions regulations, increasing the production of fossil fuels, and dismantling federal efforts to monitor and respond to climate change. As the New York Times recently reported, the U.S. "now stands virtually alone on the world stage in its disregard for the growing threats posed by a rapidly warming world, even as global temperatures reach record highs and extreme weather causes more death and destruction." The attitude of the current administration runs exactly counter to the consensus among scientists, for there is more scientific certainty regarding global warming than is the case about most scientific findings.
 
A look at what's happening at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) shows us some of what's transpiring. Tasked with coordinating the work of 30 federal agencies that deal with these matters, NOAA has been tossed into the wrecking machine of DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency led by Trump's Elon Musk. As a result, several environmental agencies have been disbanded while tens of thousands of civil servants have either been fired or forced into retirement. Prior to Trump's return, NOAA had nearly 12,000 employees. DOGE quickly reduced that number by more than 10%, to some 10,200 workers. That disrupted the agency's work considerably.The worst may still be to come, Now Trump is demanding further cuts, If they are approved, NOAA's research arm my cease to exist.
 
While NOAA's mission has been to understand and protect changes in the climate, the Environmental Protection Agency is meant to focus on protecting human health and the environment through regulation and enforcement. But in just this past month, we learned that EPA was drafting a plan to end federal limits on greenhouse gases generated from coal- and gas-fired power plants. The plan is intended to overturn rules published in the final year of the Biden administration that sought to limit planet-warming emissions from U.S. power plants. Climate experts immediately slammed the new effort, noting that it would prevent the country (the U.S. is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world) from averting truly catastrophic climate change.
 
At almost the same moment that we learned of this Trumpian reversal, a catastrophe in Switzerland gave us a preview of greater catastrophes to come. A huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier crashed down a mountainside in the Swiss canton of Valais, burying almost an entire village under mud. The only good news was that authorities had foreseen such a possibility ten days earlier as the risk of the glacier's rupture became apparent. They then odered the evacuation of the village, which was empty when the glacier ploughed into it. Swiss glacier experts have expressed growing concern in recent years about a thaw of the nation's many glaciers as the result of global warming. While glaciers may not threaten Philadelphia, we are told that rising sea levels make it inevitable that our own International Airport will one day have to be moved to higher ground. Nor does the airport sit on the sole bit of low-lying ground in and around our city.
 
America can expect more unusual and severe storms as the world heats up. In the 1980s, we experienced, on average, one (inflation-adjusted) billion-dollar disaster every four months. Now we average one every three weeks! The earth today is about 1.2 degrees (Celsius) warmer than it was toward the end of the 19th century. Emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 if the planet is not to warm more than 1.5 degrees. While the hour is late, it is not too late to save our planet if sufficient numbers of us Homo sapiens alive today live up to our "smart human" species' monicker and contribute no further to global warming while also demanding that those who act in our behalf truly act on behalf of our living planet.  
 
                         (June 2025)
 
 
 
 
Trump Kills Off the Pax Americana
 
Donald Trump has now revealed what his America First slogan really means. In recent days, he has done his worst to end the eighty-year reign of the United States as leader of what used to be called the Free World. He arranged for his envoys to meet with those of Russia's Vladimir Putin to plan a deal to end the latter's war on Ukraine--this without the participation of Ukraine itself. He suggested that Ukraine was somehow responsible for the war, never mind that the unprovoked aggressor was Russia and Ukraine its victim. Trump called Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a dictator even though he had been elected democratically and was still widely spported by his people. Then came a meeting in the White House with the Ukrainian president, where Trump and his Vice-President, with tv cameras rolling, then berated Zelensky to his face. That brought the meeting to an abrupt and discordant ending while telegraphing to the world that the U.S. was abandoning Ukraine. Worse than America first, we seem to have entered an era where it's now America alone.
 
Zelensky immediately went to London, where he met with the leaders of the European democracies--allies of the United States--who voiced their continued support in his nation's cause. At the end of their summit, the host, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said, "we are doubling down" in supporting Ukraine. Europe's aim now, he added, was to arm Ukraine sufficiently that it could begin any peace talks from a position of strength. Back in the US, Trump, his aides and Republican allies continued to lash out at Zelensky. They argued that he needed to display more gratitude for American support, with some even suggesting that he should resign as president. A number of Democrats spoke instead of the shame and embarrassment they insisted millions of citizens felt over Trump's treatment of Zelensky. In the words of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, "our job is to defend the 250-year tradition that we have of being the democratic leader of the world, not turn our backs on a struggling country that is trying to do the right thing."
 
Three days after the face-off in the Oval Office, Trump directed a "pause" in continuing American aid to Ukraine. That followed further actions suggesting that Trump was realigning the country with Russia, our long-time adversary. In the UN General Assembly, the US refused to vote for resolutions blaming Russia for starting the war against its neighbor. Trump also called for Russia to be reinstated in the G7 group of the world's leading economies. Speaking at the security conference in Munich, Vice-President J.D. Vance ridiculed European nations as decadent and undemocratic. These were merely some of the moves that created a sense among America's allies that they could no longer count on this nation's commitment to defend them should any of them be attacked by Russia.
 
                                                        (March 2025)
 
 
       
 
 
Can Our Republic Survive Donald Trump?
 
I write less than two weeks after Donald Trump's return to the White House. As all the world knows, from his first hour back in office, he has engaged in unprecedented shock and awe in asserting his unbridled power. On his first day, Trump signed executive orders to freeze hiring throughout the federal government, bring workers back to in-person work full time, and end diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Then came the start of immigration raids on cities across the country. An executive order ending birthright citizenship may have been the most blatantly illegal of his early actions, since that is a right provided in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which no president can abolish unilaterally. A federal judge immediately suspended Trump's order. 
 
Within days, a memo from the Office of Personnel Management told employees that they should quit and find more useful work. It asserted that "the way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector." That advice was coupled with an offer of "deferred resignation." Those who would agree by February 6 to leave their jobs would retain all pay and benefits until September 30, while those who passed up the offer would not have "full assurance" that their position or even their agency would continue to exist.
 
That memo landed on the desks of federal employees the day before a commercial airliner collided with a U.S. Army helicopter above Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington, D.C., killing all 67 passengers aboard the two aircraft. Trump immediately blamed the crash on diversity hiring. He alleged that Presidents Obama and Biden had lowered standards to meet racial or other quotas, never mind that there was no evidence suggesting that anyone involved in the collision was unqualified.
 
The stunnnng commands kept coming. A number of senior FBI officials were told to resign or be fired within days. Employees in the Department of Agriculture were ordered to delete all references to climate change on their website. A ban on transgender bathrooms in all federal agencies followed from the President's declaration that there are only two genders, male and female. Anyone working on "gender ideology" would be fired. Trump had long vowed to abolish the Department of Education which, as of today, still hangs in the chopping block.
 
Also within days of taking the oath of office, Trump fired 18 of the government's inspectors general. These are nonpartisan officials selected to blow the whistle on instances of gross inefficiencies or unlawful behavior within the federal workforce. As one appalled commentator noted after the firing, "if the designated watchers aren't watching, because they've been purged by the very abuse of power they were installed to prevent, then the way is open for more abuse and corruption to flow."
 
This only scratches the surface of the authoritarian actions Trump has taken in the first two weeks of his second administration. There are more than 200 weeks still to come. At the current pace, he won't need that much time to undermine--and overturn--the Constitution of the United States. He won't, that is, if Congressional Republicans, his MAGA base, and sympathetic judges continue their support of him. It is up to the rest of us to resist to show all our fellow Americans that resistance is the only way to save our republic. As Senator Adam Schiff recently reminded us, "history is littered with democracies that lost their freedoms and didn't notice it while it was happening. Let's not be one of them." Let us remember Benjamin Franklin's charge to us: "You have a republic," he said soon after signing the new Constitution, "if you can keep it." Next year is the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. Let us show the world by the time that year dawns that we have kept our republic. Future generations will cherish us for that.
 
                                                       (February 2025)
 
 

 

 
Joe Biden, Public Servant
 
When Joe Biden leaves the White House next week, he will be bidding good-bye not only to the highest office in the land, but to a career in politics that spans more than half a century. His legacy will surely be defined not simply by his longevity, but, much more importantly, by the ways in which he came to define what it means to be an American public servant. While there are no doubt a handful of his predecessors who outshone him in what they accomplished, none surpassed him in exemplifying what it meant to have a life-long commitment to serving the public. 
 
Biden was first sworn in as a U.S. senator only weeks after he turned thirty, which is the minimum age prescribed in our Constitution to be eligible to serve in Congress's upper chamber. Over the course of his next 36 years in that body, he became one of its leading members. He was chair or ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for 16 years. In the 1990s, he was largely responsible for drafting several pieces of important legislation, including the 1994 Crime Bill and, in the same year, an act meant to stem violence against women. He held the same leadership role in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years, where he left his mark on a number of foreign policy issues.
 
In 2008, following his second unsuccessful effort to secure the Democratic nomination for president, the man who beat him for the nomination, Barack Obama, then selected Biden as his running mate. It was a serendipitous choice. In picking this consummate veteran of Washington politics, Obama, the outsider, created one of the most successful partnerships in presidential history. As Vice-President, Biden oversaw implementation of the Recovery Act, the largest economic recovery act in the nation's history. He also helped secure passage of the Afforable Care Act, which reduced by 10 million the number of Americans without health insurance. He was simultaneously active in diplomacy, serving as the point person to advance American foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. He led the effort to bring 150,000 U.S. troops home from Iraq.
 
Biden finally succeeded in winning the presidency in 2020, the oldest person ever to enter the White House. During his single term, he succeeded in reinvigorating the American economy and making a new covid-19 vaccine available to all. His Infrastructure Law launched huge reninvestments in rebuilding roads and bridges, removing lead pipes, and advancing high-speed internet access. The Inflation Reduction Act became the largest investment in environmental protection in the nation's history.
 
This life-long record of accomplishment is perhaps the more remarkable given the tragedies that have beset Joe Biden. He lost his first wife and young daughter in a traffic accident shortly after he was first elected to the Senate but before he had been sworn in. He then took the oath of office at the bedsides of his two young sons, who had been critically injured in that accident. Years later, while Biden was Vice-President, his older son, Beau, who by then was the Attorney General of Delaware, died of brain cancer in 2010.
 
However history comes to rate Biden's accomplishmets as president, he will forever live in the front ranks of Americans who can claim the title of public servant. Of course, he has been rewarded by his many years in office. But one has never had the sense that he was in it for the glamour or the acclaim. He has truly spent his now-long life serving the public.
 
                                                         (January 14, 2025) 
 
 
 
 
Dump Trump in the Trump Dump
 
I write days before what could be as consequential a presidential election as any in our nation's history. Should Donald Trump be returned to the White House, our Constitution will likely be tested as it has not been since the Civil War. While it's very true that his previous turn as President was "a waking nightmare" in the words of his own niece, Mary Trump, he was at least constrained by some of those around him from acting on his worst instincts. To a large extent, the checks and balances built into our Constitutional system held. But now he has made it clear that he intends to break those barriers in every way possible. How much of that is possible may depend upon whether or not Republicans take control of both houses of Congress. Even if they do not, Trump as President could declare a national emergency and rule by fiat, at least for long enough to do irreparable damage to the Constitution. 
 
At last, a number of those who know Trump best have been willing to call him a fascist. He indeed fits the definition. For instance, he sees the nation as in decline, thanks mainly to the hordes of dark-skinned and illegal immigrants who, as he sees it, have overrun the country, in some cases eating the pet dogs and cats of "normal" Americans. Such a turn of events demands a strong man to use whatever means are necessary to purify the nation and restore its greatness.
 
Trump has been clear that he intends to go after his enemies within the country. These include anyone and everyone who has opposed him. Among them are thousands of civil servants whose job it is to implement the (legitimate) policies of the officials they work for. The nonpartisanship that is a requirement of their employment is, in Trump's world, inexcusable since, once he is President again, they should be carrying out his will. He has vowed to replace all who were not his faithful servants.
 
Nor are civil servants by any means the extent of his enemies. As he said recently in an interview on Fox News, "the enemy within is more dangerous than China or Russia." He would use the national guard to go after them. Should that amount to insufficient force, then he would call up the U.S. Army. That would test the loyalty oaths of all those officers who have sworn allegiance to protect the republic, as opposed to to giving their first allegiance to the individual who happened to be at the nation's helm. Some who know Trump best fear that he would seek out senior officers willing to abandon their Constitutional oath, which bars using the military against civilians in all but very rare cases.
 
This is much of what we and the world face if Trump wins on November 5. He has used the time since he was defeated for re-election to determine how he can get around those laws and people that constrained him so that this time he can rule as the strongman he thinks he is entitled to be. 
 
That seems a perfectly terrible way for our 250-year-old experiment with democracy to end.
 
We know how to avoid such an ending. Let me put it in the form of a meme making the rounds in recent days in the Puerto Rican community centered in Florida. It goes like this: "Remember that Tuesday is Take the Trash Out Day. So, next Tuesday is the day to take out the Trump Trash. That's when we'll all just dump Trump."
 
 
                                                       (November 2024)
 
 
 
Israel at a Dead-End?
 
Israel has been at war with Hizbullah in southern Lebanon for many weeks now. Days ago, the Israeli Defense Force launched air strikes at central Beirut for the first time in nearly two decades. 136 people reportedly were killed, including several leaders of pro-Palestinian forces. This came days after an Israeli bomb killed Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and two of its other top officials. In the past 24 hours, Israel has launched ground forces across the border. Since this latest conflict in Lebanon began, Israel's campaign has displaced about a million people there.
 
As the world knows, the latest war between Israel and its neighbors was triggered almost a year ago, when Hamas, a Palestinian resistance movement operating largely in Gaza, launched a brutal attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 civilians and took 240 people as hostages. Israel immediately responded in a massive campaign that has by now killed some 40,000 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians. In the process, the more than two million people living in the Gaza Strip have been displaced, repeatedly in many cases, and the territory left in ruins. On-going efforts have failed to get the warring parties to agree to a cease-fire so that the hostages still held by Hamas could be returned.
 
Much of the world sympathized with Israel after the initial attack on its territory. Yet, today, more and more individuals and governments are calling for a halt to the bloodshed and the destruction. To date, Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, continues to insist that his foes in this conflict must be defeated. For his critics, this looks like a fool's errand inasmuch as the history of this conflict makes clear that the militant groups seeking to liberate Palestine are continually rejuvenated; when their leaders fall, they are replaced by others to lead the fight another day, and recruitment surges.
 
In 1947, the United Nations, then in its infancy, voted to partition the British-ruled territory into two new states: Israel for the Jews, who had largely been scattered from this land of their origin, and Palestine for the Arabs who had lived in the region for most of the two thousand years since the dispersal of the Jews. The state of Israel was established almost immediately, but, 75 years later, that for the Palestinians remains a distant dream. While most Israeli leaders have paid lip service to the realization of that dream, the current prime minister has turned his back on it. And he, of course, has had the back of the government of the United States, Israel's strongest ally still today. 
 
Last May in the UN Security Council, the US vetoed Palestine's bid to become a full member of the organization, noting the obvious, that it didn't qualify since it is not yet a state. The General Assembly promptly conferred several new privileges on the Palestinians, including their right to submit resolutions. That allowed the Palestinian delegation (an observer mission) to submit a draft resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from all Palestinian space--land, sea, and air--and to dismantle Jewish settlements in the West Bank, return seized property and pay reparations. The US, along with a handful of other friends of Israel, voted no. But voting yes were Russia and China as well as America's friends: France, Japan, Ireland, Norway, and Spain. The UK, Canada, and Australia abstained.
 
True, the General Assembly cannot vote a state of Palestine into existence. But the vote was a remarkable indicator of the direction in which the nations of the world want this issue to move. It is high time for America to join with others willing to do the hard work necessary to make a state of Palestine a reality.  
 
                                                        (October 2024) 
 
P.S. The above text was posted a day before Iran fired numerous missiles at Israel and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon. The prospect therefore grew that the conflict could grow to include additional actors and increased destruction. These developments did not change my conclusion, but surely postponed yet again the prospect I advanced here.
 
 
 
 
 
Foreign Policy Prospects in a Harris Administration
 
The election of a president this November is unlikely to turn on matters of foreign policy since such issues are usually determinative only when the United States is engaged in or on the brink of war. Still, wars continue in Ukraine and the Middle East in which America has important investments. And the ongoing pressure of migrants at our southern border has been a major talking point for candidate Donald Trump in branding his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, President Biden's failed "border czar" responsible for the high number of migrant crossings in the last several years.
 
In this space last month, I laid out my case for not allowing Trump to return to the White House, a case that included potentially disastrous shifts in the nation's foreign policy. Now I want to suggest the likely shape of a Harris foreign policy, which is sure to be far less alarming.
 
Nothing she has said as the Democratic nominee suggests that she intends a radical departure from Biden's policies abroad. That includes continuing to regard the now-enlarged NATO as the crucially important instrument of America's behavior in Europe. Unlike Trump, she is sure to remain staunchly on the side of Ukraine as it continues its effort to repel Russia's invasion of its neighbor. She has accused the Putin government of "crimes against humanity" for its attack on Ukraine and has warned China against providing Russia with support. She no doubt hopes for a future for Ukraine, as do most Americans, in which it takes its place squarely among the world's democracies.
 
The war in Gaza seems unlikely to have been brought to an end before Biden's term ends. Although Harris has mostly been in lock-step with the President in supporting Israel and its right to defend itself since it was attacked in October of last year, she has been sharper than he in reminding the world of the resultant suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Last March, she called for an immediate cease-fire, naming the situation there a "humanitarian catastrophe." No matter when the current fighting is brought to a halt, the underlying conflict between the State of Israel and stateless Palestinians will remain. For months, Harris has taken the lead in pushing for ways to seek a lasting peace for the region. As president, she would no doubt remain a staunch friend of Israel, but hopefully would take new initiatives to advance statehood for Palestine as well--a thing which has been on hold for decades.   
 
In a recent interview, Harris noted that she was determined to bring back, and pass, the bipartisan bill that would put 1,500 additional agents on our southern border and greatly improve the nation's ability to control illegal immigration there. It was Trump who killed such a bill months ago, charging Republican members of Congress not to vote for it so that he could continue to blame Biden and Harris for issues at the border during his ongoing campaign for the presidency.
 
As Vice-President, Harris traveled to Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia, countering the narrative that her nation's interest in Africa was only to use it as a pawn to guard against Chinese and Russian expansion there. She has since taken other initiatives to partner with this continent as it is experiencing a population boom.
 
Our relations with China will no doubt remain front and center during the next administration. Harris has been critical of Beijing's claims to much of what lies within the South China Sea and has reiterated America's long-standing support for Taiwan's self-defense. In the absence of a crystal ball to ascertain how these issues might assert themselves in the next several years, I can nonetheless conclude that the current Chinese government is determined at least to match, if not surpass, the U.S. as the world's dominant power. That may challenge the next administration on a scale reminiscent of how the Soviet Union challenged the West in the post-World War II period. Such a challenge could define the coming era.
 
This very brief sketch should make clear that, far from being a "failed Marxist," as one of Trump's libels would have it, Kamala Harris will pursue a foreign policy very much in line with what we have come to expect from our most sucessful presidents over the past seventy or eighty years. Only Donald Trump, during his four years in the White House, attempted a real change in course, one which unsettled many world leaders and countless Americans, as well as some within his own entourage. We can't yet know all of the challenges the next president will have to face from the world beyond our borders, but we can rest assured that a President Harris will keep a steady hand on the tiller, and maintain America's long-standing role as the most essential player in (usually) promoting peaceful change and world order.
 
                                                         (September 2024)
 
 
 
 
The Coming Presidential Election
 
It's been little short of amazing to witness the progress of Kamala Harris's campaign for President of the United States over the past week or ten days. Her candidacy of course was kick-started when President Biden endorsed her after announcing his decision on July 21 not to pursue a second term. That immediately cleared the field of other would-be Democratic contenders, virtually all of whom endorsed her within days, as did other big-wigs in the party. Her campaign raised an unprecedented $81 million withine first 24 hours after Biden withdrew, and a total of $200 million during its first week. Massachusetts Congressman Jake Auchincloss captured something of the Democrats' euphoria when he noted that "it's the future versus the past now. 70 percent of Americans said we want the top of both tickets to change. Democrats just did it and Republicans didn't."
 
The fact that Republicans didn't (and won't) change their nominee leaves them with a convicted felon as their candidate for President. In the days while Harris was raising unprecedented amounts of money, former President Trump remained true to form in the insults he launched at her. Among other slurs, he called her "dumb as a rock" and "even worse than crooked Joe Biden." Of how she got to where she is today, he said she had been "the original Marxist district attorney" of Californnia and Biden's d.e.i. (diversity, equity, and inclusion) hire. Piling it on, Sebastian Gorka, Trump's advisor, described Harris as "this disaster whose only qualification is having a vagina and the right skin color." 
 
Yes, baseless slurs against those he opposes have long been Trump's stock in trade. But now, as he looks forward to returning to the White House, he recently said the quiet part of his agenda very much out loud. He called on right-wing Christian nationalists to be sure to vote in November, telling them that, once he was elected, he would fix things so that his supporters wouldn't ever have to vote again. That was his clearest statement yet that he evidently intended to bring a crushing end to America's 250-year-old experiment with, and experience of, democracy. It added a fine point to his now familiar refrain that, once back in the White House, he would clear away the tens of thousands of civil servants who make up the so-called deep state, since presumably they are most of what keeps his MAGA followers from flourishing.
 
Trump's previous time in the White House was marked by considerable chaos. We now know--or should know--that if there is to be a next time for Trump, more chaos may be the least of it. He has advised Vladimir Putin to do whatever he pleases against our NATO allies. He suggests that a trade war is surely in the offing. But worse, we should expect an assault on our constitutional system such as we have never seen before, one generated and led by the president himself. Our consitutional system of checks and balances gives our other two co-equal branches of government--legislative and judicial--the power and authority to rein in the executive. But they will only do so if they in turn are not thoroughly in league with the president. Should this election also give both houses of Congress Republican majorities, they will likely sympathize with and support much of what a President Trump proclaims as governing policy now that the GOP is under Trump's thumb. And the Supreme Court has recently decreed that no president can be prosecuted for "official" actions, very broadly considered.
 
I remain confident that, should we came to such a pass, our constitutional systsem would not collapse without a fight. But that oould mean a fight on a scale such as we have not experienced since our Civil War. The best way to avoid that outcome is to elect Kamala Harris our President next November. Her campaign is off to a promising start. Early polls have generally shown her running increasingly strongly against Trump, and one or two now have her ahead. Between now and the November election, I expect her to keep showing her chops by continiing to reveal her commitment to maintaining our demoracy and her intention to govern the nation on behalf of all its citizens.She will maintain our leading role in the world. Her character shines through her campaign.
 
One not-so-trivial concern remains. I worry that enough sexism and racism remain as undercurrents in our society to have a negative impact on her election. Yet, if, as some reports suggest, younger cohorts of our population are attracted to her candidacy, their votes could help to overcome those undercurrents. I end with a slightly jesting comment on a recent display of that sexism as directed at Kamala Harris. When a Trump supporter noted sneeringly that she has never given birth to a baby, the retort from the other side was to point out that the same can be said of every other person who has ever served as president of the United States. 
 
                                                                  (August 2024)
 
 
 
 
What's at Stake in November's Presidential Election
 
On an evening in late June, we witnessed the first so-called debate between President Biden and Donald Trump of this election season. A debate it was not, inasmuch as the format encouraged the candidates to posture and declaim rather than address the challenges each might have posed to the other. Typically, when the moderator asked Trump to follow up on something he'd said previously, what we got instead was a diatribe on a different subject, and one full of falsehoods.
 
By the next day, almost all the commentary insisted that Biden had performed badly, some even going so far as to suggest that those close to him should persuade him to step aside from seeking a  second term and leave the Democratic nomination to another candidate. That surprised me initially since I had thought at the end of the debate that Biden had done fairly well. In spite of seeming to lose his train of thought once or twice for a moment or two, he had talked sensiblly, if sometimes only semi-audibly, in contrast to his opponent. Biden has never been an eloquent speaker and his public outings have often included oral slip-ups, starting from when he was first elected to the Senate at age 30. Nonetheless, he has given this nation more than half a century of dedicated and productive public service. His time in the White House has been marked by some important legislation in spite of relentless opposition from Congressional Republicans. No, he is not as vigorous as he ws decades ago, but I see no evidence that he is senile, as many in the opposing camp insist.
 
I happen to be five years older than Biden, and I'm not as vigorous as I once was either. But I'm quite sure I'm not yet senile, since I'm still able to engage in the kinds of intellectual activities that have been at the center of my now-long life. (It makes me smile to remember that when Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972, I was amazed to learn that this senator-elect was several years younger than I. My experience until then was that being a senator was a job reserved for the middle-aged and elderly!) I was relieved to learn that President Biden was much more vigorous at a rally in North Carolina the day following the debate. He himself acknowledged that his performance the night before had been sub-par. 
 
Trump, meanwhile, was characteristically Trump, continuing to insist that his felony conviction in New York was a scam, one cooked up by a "weaponized" Justice Department, never mind that the Federal government had no role in his trial. He has told us repeatedly that he intends to exact revenge against his opponents should he win in November. That may be the least of it. As I noted in this space last month, we now know more than enough about this man to see the grim prospect for our nation if he defeats Biden. He would defund the Department of Justice and eviscerate the FBI, dismantle other departments and reverse efforts to halt climate change, removing huge numbers of career civil servants along the way. Trump's goal will be to make American society reliably Trumpian for all time to come, conceivably with himself indefinitely in charge should he try to defy the Constitutional mandate limiting presidents to two terms. He will keep his most radial MAGA followers whipped up, encouraging them to use violence if necessaary to destroy their common "enemy," i.e., the rest of us. 
 
No, I don't believe that the anti-Constitutional rampage this would entail can fully succeed without the kind of all-out warfare that tore apart this nation in the 1860s. But, yes, a second Trump presidency could spell the greatest threat to the  American republic since the Civil War. That's a prospect that no one who loves this country should want to see repeated. So, in November, vote as if your life depends on it--because the very life of the United States of America is at stake.
 
                                                         (July 2024)
 
 
 
Trump's Conviction and Our Nation's Future
 
As the world now knows, days ago Donald Trump became a felon when he was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records by a New York court. He immediately, and predictably, denounced the outcome as "rigged," presumably by the Biden Administration, in spite of the fact that his conviction was by a jury of twelve of his fellow New Yorkers in a state, not a federal, court, where the White House plays no role, and the judge and the trial's proceedings were demonstrably correct and fair. Trump of course will appeal the decision, so the public is promised a continuation of this drama that will last for many months, if not years. And this is merely the first--and least consequential--of four cases in which the former president has been indicted, the others of which will not likely come to trial before the November election.
 
A visitor from another planet, but one acquainted with our Constitution, might suppose that what we just outlined would instantly end Mr. Trump's campaign to become president again in November. He or she would be stunned to learn that, instead, the candidate's MAGA base and Republican  "leaders" have rallied around him, even showering his campaign with nearly $30 million in contributions in the 24 hours immediately following the verdict. We face a real prospect that Trump could win the election in November and become our president again next January.  
 
That could mean, not simply a deepening of the partisan divide that has characterized our nation since the first Trump presidency. but the overthrow of our Consitution and our republic. Trump has pretty much spelled out what he intends if he's given a second administration. He would be a dictator on day one, which of course means it would be his goal to maintain such powers indefinitely through exeutive orders, declaring a state of emergency or whatever. He would then attack what he labels the deep state by firing or making life intolerable for the many thousands of career bureaucrats who keep the machinery running to make funds available for everything from providing the Pentagon with its hardware to ensuring that citizens' benefits through Medicare and Social Security keep flowing. Without attempting to anticipate exactly how he would work to make himself the indispensable leader, it is clear that he would do everything he could to undermine or co-opt both Congress and the courts, those co-equal branches of government. He has made clear that he would appoint only those willing to  help him carry out his effort to undermine our constitutional system.
 
Yes, there would surely be blowback, both from Democrats and even some Republican officials, as well as from much of the public at large. But there  could well be substantial support for this kind of subversion of the Constitution from the large segments of the public that elected him. Trump would not be the presumptive Republican nominee for president if he did not continue to win and maintain the support of a large MAGA base and the acquiescence, at least, of increasingly compliant Republican officials. So the danger to our republic stems not simply from the antics and the agenda of one highly visible scoundrel, but from the way he has seduced millions of our fellow-countrymen. The evidence that so very many of our citizens are disenchanted with what our political system has to offer them is more than disheartening. Their concerns very much need to be addressed by the rest of us. 
 
I still have confidence that our 225-year-old republic can overcome this most grievous threat to the nation since the Civil War. But it will take an electorate that understands how great are the stakes here to assure that the next presidential election simply adds one more positive chapter to our history rather than a tragic endiing.
 
                                                               (June 2024)

 

 

 

War's Outcome: A Neutral Ukraine?

 

Now that the United States has agreed to send another $61 billion in military and financial assistance to Ukraine, that victim of Russia's all-out aggression has been thrown a life-line, however belatedly. Congress's months-long delay in approving that appropriation allowed Russia to seize more territory while Ukrainian forces were made to ration their dwindling supplies of artillery and suffer continuing attacks on their cities. Even though the new assistance will help to level the playing field, it is insufficient to give Ukraine the ability to start to take back land that Russia has already occupied, which amounts to some 18% of its total territory. 

 

Since the war began more than two years ago, it has been widely assumed that the goal in supporting Ukraine was to make it possible, once Putin's forces were defeated, for Ukraine to join the European Union and, perhaps, NATO as well. Ukraine has been pointed in that direction starting with its Maidan Revolution in 2013-114, when its pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovich, refused to sign a comprehensive trade deal with the  EU, and fled to Russia in the turmoil that followed. Russia then illegally annexed Crimea, the prescursor for further aggressions to follow. With the election in 2019 of the current president, Volodomyr Zelensky, it was clear that the dominant political forces in Ukraine sought closer ties with the West. That prospect led Putin to argue that Nazis had taken over in Kiev, making it his responsibilitiy to return Ukraine to Russia's orbit. His full-scale attack on his neighbor followed early in 2022.

 

Given the fact that Russia's population is nearly five times that of Ukraine, it is remarkable that Ukraine has resisted and even held off the enemy for as long as it has. Still, that same imbalance makes clear which side has the long-term advantage, especially if those democracies that support Ukraine should tire of the battle and walk away. That was clearly forehadowed in the Republican reluctance to renew America's assistance this fall. An even longer shadow grows from the prospect of Donald Trump's return to the presidency, since it is very doubtful that he would continue genuine support to Ukraine.

 

Make no mistake, if Putin's blatant cross-border act of aggression is allowed to succeed, that most fundamental norm upholding world order for which two world wars were fought in the last century will have been profoundly, even fatally, wounded. But, given the fact that it seems increasingly unrealistic to suppose that support for Ukraine will remain sufficient to ensure Russia's defeat and complete withdrawal, what outcome should we find acceptable? I suggest that it should be possible for Ukraine--with continuing support from its friends--to keep Russian forces at bay to the point that Putin and those surrounding him will increasingly ask if the game is worth it. That effort could, and should, be supported by also reassuring Putin that Ukraine will not become a treaty member with the West in opposition to his nation. That might not preclude closer ties with the European Union. But militarily, Kiev would remain conspicuously neutral for the foreseeable future. That kind of political neutrality, after all, suited Sweden and Finland for some seventy years after World War II, the two of them only joining NATO this year when their standing within the democracies of the world cound not be questioned and Russia viewed neither country as a military threat.

 

What I propose is meant to allow Putin to end his war without undue loss of face. It does not address the matter of how plausible it will be to secure Russia's complete withdrawal from all the Ukrainian territory it has taken. That will surely be a knotty problem. Given the bellicose environment today, it may be difficult to seek the long-term goal of reconciliation--without conquest--between these two adversaries that, after all, have been close relatives since their origins as Kievan Rus and Muscovy during the Middle Ages. Only with the creation of the Russian Empire was Ukraine forced to subordinate its independence to its more powerful neighbor. Today the goal must be to encourage them to live in peace as sovereign equals--with each other and their neighbors--as the only way to cultivate greater mutual understanding. 

 

                                                                  (May 2024)

 

 

 

 

The War in Gaza, Still

 

In this sixth month of the war in Gaza, Israel is now facing increasing criticism from around the world for the ever-growing death toll of innocent civilians in that territory. In recent days, President Biden and other administration officials have said that the United States will reconsider supplying arms to its ally unless the Netanyahu government acts both to move the million-plus Palestinians now crowded together at the southern end of the strip out of harm's way, and opens more routes for food and other essential supplies to reach starving Gazans. This follows an order from the International Court of Justice that Israel must do more to protect civilians in the territory. Days after that order, the deaths from Israeli fire of seven workers attempting to deliver food to the enclave brought worldwide condemnation. Their deaths brought to more than 200 the number of aid workers that have died in Israel's ongoing campaign against Hamas.

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to insist that the war will not end until Hamas is "destroyed," never mind the ongoing destricution and loss of life throughout Gaza (at the moment, more than 33,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by the IDF). It is also the view of most observers that Hamas cannot be destroyed on the battlefield, but will remain a source of opposition to Israel. That is an especially fraught possibility. A former Israeli lawmaker recently argued that a battlefield success for Israel would be "almost meaningless" as long as Israel refused to advance a vision for how Gaza should be governed following an end to the fighting. 

 

On March 25, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. Significantly, the United States abstained rather than vetoing the resolution, which allowed it to pass. It seems clear that the approximately 130 hostages still held by Hamas will not be released until all parties agree to a cease-fire. Even though talks to that end continue, I write when no such agreement is yet within reach.

 

Meanwhile, the prospect rises that the current conflict may escalate. Israel recently killed several Iranian officials, including two generals, at Iran's consulate in Damascus. The Iranian government has promised to retaliate. And  Hezbollah, sponosred by Iran, continues rocket attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon. The way back from the brink surely lies in a clear de-escalation of Israel's military campaign. That conceivably will only come if an early election in Israel should replace Natanyahu's government with one committed to arriving at a diplomatic solution. Such a prospect looks distant at the moment. 

 

Even more distant is real movement toward the long-delayed effort to create a Palestinian state to live side by side in peace with Israel. That goal has receded ever further from view throughout the time that Benyamin Netanyahu has served as Israel's prime minister, for he continues to reject a two-state solution. The best that might come out of the current situation would be for all parties, which must include world leaders as well as those throughout the Middle East, to agree to such a goal and then begin to work to turn it into reality. The road there will no doubt continue to be long and difficult. But, as many have noted, the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

 

                                                          (April 2024)

 

 

 

 

 

"Our Gang" and the World's Future

 

Russia's war against Ukraine recently entered its third year, this at a time when the United States is failing to extend its vital military aid to the embattled government in Kiev. The Ukrainians have fought valiantly against their larger and more powerful enemy, but have had to expend so much of their available fire power that they now must ration what they can send to the battlefield. Ammunition is in especially short supply. In Washington, meanwhile, a substantial bill for more aid passed the Senate weeks ago, but, as of this writing, the Speaker of the House refuses to introduce it in his chamber out of fear that, if he does so, the most extreme members of his Republican caucus will vote to remove him from office. 

 

But consider the world beyond our borders. America's European allies have made substantial contributions to Ukraine's war effort. Eleven of them in addition to the U.S. have been partners in NATO since its creation in 1949. Most of the rest have become alliance members over the years since, bringing the NATO total, with about-to-be member Sweden, to 32. Add in the European Union to account for most of what, during the Cold War, were called the Western democracies. Today, of course, thriving democracies are to be found in Asia, Oceania, and elsewhere as well. The U.S. has formal alliances with some, but not all, of them. They are in varying degrees opposed to Putin's aggression in Ukraine. I'll use the shorthand "Our Gang" here to refer to all those democratic states at odds with his effort to re-create a Russian empire through force of arms.

 

It should be obvious to those who love self-rule and freedom from oppression that it is in the interest of all members of Our Gang to oppose Putin's war. If he wins in Ukraine, will Poland or the Baltic states be next? And how long after that before the bear is breathing down the neck of more distant free societies? That much, as I said, should be obvious, but unfortunately it is not. The presumptive Republican candidate in November's presidential election in the U.S. said to Putin not long ago "do whatever the hell you like" to those NATO states that are not paying their full share for their own protection within the alliance. At least as strange and outrageous, he has also questioned whether NATO is worth maintaining. It all demonstrates a kind of knee-jerk America First impulse that evidently reflects the man's inability to imagine such a thing as common interests among like-minded, democratic nations.

 

When the Soviet Union imploded at the end of the 1980s, we entered a brief period when hope grew that future conflicts between the former adversaries might be resolved without undue fist-waving, let alone  fisticuffs. Yet, Western leaders never undertook a real effort to make their former adversaries truly equal partners in the creation of a more just, peaceful, and equitable future for all. No doubt it was largely because of the hold-over of suspicions from the past on both sides that Putin eventually came to power in Moscow, bringing with him a retrograde agenda. The most barbarous piece of it was his unprovoked, full-scale attack on Ukraine, which brought us the largest war in Europe since the end of World War II.

 

It is now our responsibility--that of the citizens of Our Gang acting through their elected leaders--to ensure that the war's outcome restores Ukraine. That will demonstrate once more that aggression is unacceptable in a well-ordered world. It would set the stage as well for improvements to our political life around the globe.

 

                                                        (March 2024)

 

 

 

 

Fascism Comes to America

 

Ever since Donald Trump (barely) won the presidency in 2016, I have occasionally expressed my bewilderment at how millions of my fellow-Americans could find the man so appealing as to support him. His repellant personality is such that, were I to meet him at a party, I would distance myself from him as fast as possible and vow to maintain that separation. Wouldn't any non-sociopathic adult feel the same as I did and keep away from him?

 

But then I remember why that's the wrong way to view the Trumpian phenomenon. His MAGA base supports him because he is not an establishment politician but a man who shares their grievances against the establishment. That makes him one of them. But at the same time, what makes Trump unlike them is what also binds them to him. That is his self-proclaimed ability to provide them with the retribution they are sure they deserve. Trump's promise is that of the strong man to the masses eager to take orders that will save them. Their devotion has nothing to do with welcoming him as a neighbor.

 

This is the very model of how fascism works. Almost exactly a century ago, Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy on virtually identical premises. A few years later, Adolph Hitler followed in Germany, as did Generalissimo Franco in Spain. None were men you'd want to share a beer with on your front porch. No, it was their very hardness that turned millions into followers, convinced that these guys would deal ruthlessly with their mutual enemies. And they did.

 

In America today, the foes of Trump and MAGA are the globalists who have let far too many immigrants into the country, people who, Trump tells them, channeling Hitler, "are poisoning the blood of our nation." These are the same alien forces who are taking the jobs many in the base have lost while contributing as well to a rise in crime. Meanwhile, the globalists in charge of things have been shipping the money of honest citizens overseas instead of fixing the border and restoring the nation's industry. To sum up how this globalist elite is their enemy, Trump assures his base that these people "aren't just out to get me. They're coming after you as well."

 

So, how will our nation fare in the event of a Trump victory next November? He has pretty much told us. Although he plans to be a dictator "only on day one," those twenty-four hours are time enough to launch a putsch against our Constitution. I make no predictions as to how that might unfold, although it shouldn't be hard for him to find an excuse for declaring a state of emergency. That would militarize at least some of what has been within the realm of our civil society, all in the name of rendering the nation safe from its enemies. Given the likelihood that Trump would take coercive action against those he perceives to be his enemies, that would no doubt bring resistance, more coercion, and an escalation in the use of force. Given the power he would have at his disposal, it is  hard to see how the republic as we've known it could long survive.

 

So, the U.S.A. now appears to be on the doorstep of its greatest crisis since the Civil War. It will soon be up to the voters to decide whether to step over that threshold or move back away from it.

 

                                                    (February 2024)

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons Not Yet Learned from the War in Gaza

 

I continue my consideration from last month of the current state of affairs in the Gaza war. Nearly three months have passed since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel provoked the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to strike back by invading Gaza. His goal was to "eliminate" Hamas, which has governed that tiny territory of some 2.3 milliion people since 2016. In short order, Israel's invasion made Gaza the site of the most destructive war of several that have erupted between the Jewish state and its Palestinian neighbors since Israel was created 75 years ago.

 

Start with the October 7 attack by Hamas: an unprepared Israel saw roughly 1,200 of its citizens and other residents killed, with 240 taken as hostages. These were unquestionably atrocities, as most of the world agreed, justifying Israel's response as the legitimate effort to punish those responsible. Initially, the Israel Defense Force focused its airstrikes on the northern part of the strip, and warned the million or more souls living there to evacuate to the south for their own safety. But in short order, the destruction was directed to the south as well. Within a matter of weeks, refugees were on the road for a second and third time in the effort to remain alive. The death toll mounted quickly. After one month of warfare, the Palestinian death toll surpassed 10,000; by the time 2023 was coming to a close less than two months later, that figure had more than doubled to nearly 22,000, a huge percentage of whom were women and children.

 

Meanwhile, Israel claimed to have killed large numbers of Hamas fighters, in addition to having discovered--and in some cases destroyed--a number of Hamas-constructed tunnels from which its officials directed the fighting. Much of northern Gaza is now leveled and some 85% of the population has been driven from its homes. Still, at year's end, Israel insisted it must keep the war going for many more weeks or months to eliminate Hamas as a viable force. At the same time, with only very limited aid entering Gaza, a U.N. report stated that more than half a million people in Gaza--a quarter of its population--were starving. The territory evidently was undergoing the worst famine anywhere in the world in recent times.

 

As the tragedies mounted, the prospects for peace grew ever more distant. The Israeli government evidently had no end game in mind, even though crushing Hamas, even if that were feasible, could be little more than a first step toward a better future for the region. Netanyahu had long since backed away from the goal of an independent Palestine as Israel's sovereign neighbor. That rightly added to the growing criticism of the war Israel continued to wage in Gaza. The terrible ordeal Palestinians in that strip of land are undergoing currently has made plainer than ever before how the long denial to Palestinians throughout the region of their rights as a free people perpetuates a grave injustice. It is an injustice that even previous Israeli governments have acknowledged as a condition that should be overcome. 

 

It seems clear to this observer that the United States, which has long been Israel's staunchest supporter, must take the lead in pointing the Israelis--and the world--back toward a two-state prospect as the only ethical way forward. No, achieving that will not be possible in the immediate future, given the history of grievance that must be overcome, including the goal of the most militant Palestinians to wipe Israel from the map. But it must be embraced as the goal of all the key players because it is the only eventual outcome that can bring peace and dignity to all who live in the region. The tropes of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia can only be brought to heel once a two-state solution takes root in the minds of millions. Getting to that point will be difficult. But the journey of a thousand miles begins with an initial step.

 

                                                           (January 2024)

   

 

 

 

Whither Israel and Palestine after the War in Gaza?

 

 

It is now seventy-five years since the state of Israel was created along a coastal strip of land that had been home to Palestinians for some two thousand years. True, the  Jews who became citizens of the new state starting in 1948 traced the birth of their religion, and hence, their identity, to that same territory long before they began to be dispersed to distant territories across the globe starting with the Christian era. But in returning to the place of Judaism's origin, some 700,000 of that land's Arab-speaking population were made to emigrate from what had long been their homeland.

 

The  hope of the global leaders at the time who supported the creation of this new state was that a Palestinian state would also be established as Israel's neighbor. But from the beginning, Israel claimed territory beyond what had been agreed to by the U.N.; at the time of its birth, it added some 60% more land following its military successes against its Arab neighbors. Twenty years later came its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and Golan. Since then, Israel has put down many settlements in the West Bank. So, in spite of lip service to the two-state idea, such a reality has slipped ever further out of reach.

 

When the current war began after Hamas's brutal attacks on Israel on October 7, Israel stood on the moral high ground in returning fire against the attackers. Now, however, some two months after Israel began its effort to root out Hamas terrorists, upwards of 15,000 Gazans have been killed and more than half of Gaza's 2.6 milllion residents are homeless. Their cities and infrastructure now resemble a moonscape. As a result, what was initially widespread support for Israel's mission is crumbling, with increasing numbers of officials and citizens of countries friendly to Israel supporting a cease-fire. Still, the Netanyahu government continues to insist that it will not end the war until it has "eliminated" Hamas.

 

Therein lies the rub. Even if all those identified as Hamas officials are brought down, others are sure to rise in their place for, whatever their brutality, the Hamas movement will coninue to attract those who view it as a weapon to advance the Palestinian cause, and Israel be damned. The Netanyahu coalition, after all, has not so much as hinted at a goal of a two-state solution at the end of the current cycle of destruction. There are sure to be more such cycles and more death and devastation unless, and until, some viable prospect arises that a free and independent Palestine can be helped to thrive in peace beside its thriving neighbor. Getting there will be arduous, but first steps in that direction are demanded now.

 

The moment should be apt to remind ourselves that among the nations that are most successful in the world today are those that are welcoming and have become beacons of diversity. The goal of marrying nationhood to a single tribe or ethnic group was largely the agenda of the 19th century. The USA led the way from early in its existence to welcoming people, originally from all over Europe, and later, from the rest of the world as well. Yes, I know that immigration is a fraught subject both here and elsewhere today, as it often has been in the past. But liberty's beacon never was extinguished, and has been raised high repeatedly to welcome the displaced to our shores. May it burn brightly in the years to come!

 

Meanwhile, it behooves all those who support genuine peace in the Middle East to work for the creation of a second free and independent state to stand beside Israel. The road there will not be easy, but it's past time to take the next steps. Once that comes to pass, we can hope that, over time, the tribalism that has defined both communities can recede to the point that those who have been regarded as "the other" will be welcomed in as equals. 

 

                                                          (December 2023)

 

 

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